'The Walking Dead' Has Plans For Season 12

Scott M. Gimple, showrunner for "The Walking Dead," made headlines earlier this year when he declared that the hit AMC series could run for 10 seasons or more. Now, it turns out that Gimple's boast wasn't just empty talk.

"Walking Dead" producer David Alpert echoed Gimple's statements during an appearance at the Produced By conference this week when he discussed the advantages to working on a series based on preexisting material -- in "Dead"'s case, a long-running series of comic books. While Gimple had spoken in vague terms about the potential for the zombie apocalypse series to continue for many more years, eventually turning over into a whole new cast, Alpert said that "Dead"'s producers had a clear vision for just how they would get there.

"I happen to love working from source material, specifically because we have a pretty good idea of what season 10 is gonna be," Aplert said. "We know where Season 11 and 12...we have benchmarks and milestones for those seasons if we're lucky enough to get there."

That's great news for diehard "Dead" fans, and no doubt music to AMC's ears, since the network has enjoyed record-breaking success with the high-rated series.